This exerpts from the original article is the continuation of Alex's encounter with the Islamic State on Social Media and how she was almost recruited into the terror group. For those not familiar with the post, kindly search out part one on this site...Happy Reading!
Crossing a Line
After dropping out of
college, Alex worked for a year at a day-care center, only to resign after a
disagreement with her manager. She quit a call-center training program after
three weeks, she said, unable to handle angry calls from customers.
Her online conversations
became a touchstone at a time when she was increasingly adrift.
Much of it was innocuous
banter, ranging from gardening tips (“Try planting purple asparagus”) to
dietary advice (“Try bitter melon tea to lower blood glucose”). Other times,
though, the talk focused on the details of an uncompromising Muslim life. By
the time Christmas arrived, she felt she had crossed a line.
She asked Faisal what it
would take to convert.
He explained that all she
needed to do was repeat the phrase “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is
his messenger,” with complete belief and commitment, in the presence of two
Muslims.
This presented an obstacle
for Alex, who still knew no Muslims in person. Faisal argued that she could
post her declaration of faith, known as the Shahada, on Twitter, and the first
two people who read it would count as her witnesses.
The night of Dec. 28, as
her family watched television, Alex quietly closed the door. She sat on her
bed, a crucifix on the bookshelf beside her. For a moment she thought she might
throw up.
Just after 9 p.m. she
logged on to Twitter.
Faisal acknowledged her
declaration right away. So did another online friend, who
went by the screen
name Hallie Sheikh and whom Faisal had asked to serve as the second witness.
Within hours, Alex had
doubled her Twitter following. “I actually have brothers and sisters,” she
posted before going to bed. “I’m crying.”
Months later, the Hallie
Sheikh Twitter handle came to public attention: That account had briefly interacted with Elton Simpson, the gunman who opened fire on a contest to draw the
Prophet Muhammad in Texas, an attack dedicated to the Islamic State.
Starting in January,
packages began arriving on the stoop of Alex’s home, bearing the Royal Mail
logo and Faisal’s address in England. Inside were pastel-colored hijabs, a
green prayer rug, and books that took her into a stricter interpretation of
Islam.
She was excited to receive
them, but at times the lessons they contained seemed foreign to Alex, even
silly – like the admonition against wearing nail polish, because it prevented
water from reaching her fingernails when she performed wudu.
One pamphlet hewed to the
most extreme interpretations of Islam, laying out “The Rights and Duties of
Women.” Those included unquestioning acceptance of polygamy, and warned that
daughters should expect to receive only half the inheritance of sons.
Each bubble-wrapped package
Faisal sent her included bars of Lindt chocolate.
She said he explained why
the brand had special significance: It was inside the Lindt Chocolate Cafe in
Sydney, Australia, that a man claiming to be acting in the name of ISIS held a
group of employees and customers hostage in a 16-hour standoff in
December.
Over the course of a few
months, Alex received books, a prayer rug and other objects to help with her
conversion. Credit Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
At the urging of another
Twitter user, she skimmed a biography of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,
the self-declared caliph of the Islamic State.
By late January, she had
split her life in two, heeding Faisal’s admonition to “keep a low profile.” She
kept her hijab in the back seat of her truck, pulling it over her frizzy red
hair only when out of sight of her house.
Church days were the
hardest. She continued to prepare her Sunday school lessons, doing her best to
sound convincing. In the pews, she bowed her head alongside the rest of the
congregation, though in her heart her prayers were different.
The only person who knew of
her conversion was her cousin, who was starting to flirt with the idea herself.
Together they went to the Dollar Store and bought two toilet plungers. In a
park, they put on their head scarves and used the handles to spar in an
imaginary sword fight.
When Alex’s grandmother
became suspicious about the overseas packages, Faisal arranged to send them to
the cousin’s home.
But Alex felt increasingly
distressed about lying to her family. And as her secret grew, so did her sense
of isolation.
Mr. Shaikh, who spent years
recruiting for extremist groups before recanting, says the isolation is
intentional. “We look for people who are isolated,” he said. “And if they are
not isolated already, then we isolated them.”
Weeks after she converted,
Alex had still not met any Muslims in real life.
Online, she discovered that
there was a mosque near her home. When Faisal looked it up, though, he learned
that the mosque’s steering committee had posted a statement disavowing the
Islamic State. He dissuaded her from going, saying it was a
government-infiltrated mosque, she said.
In early February, a number
of other Twitter users, including Mr. Shaikh, read Alex’s timeline and
recognized the signs of her growing radicalization. They threw lifelines into
the digital sea.
“I know they seem sweet,”
wrote one who went by the handle @KindLadyAdilah. “They are grooming you,” she
added, “If you went there you would die or worse.”
“Can I just ignore them?”
Alex asked, “I swear I have, like since last night, cutting off ties is hard
and they gave me stuff.”
On Feb. 13, @KindLadyAdilah
advised her to stop accepting their gifts. Alex promised she would tell Faisal
to stop sending them.
But a few days later
another envelope arrived at her cousin’s house, containing more chocolate and a
Hallmark card decorated with a cutout of a kitten. When she opened it, two $20
bills fell out.
“Please go out and enjoy a
Pizza TOGETHER,” it says, signed, “Twitter friends.”
Alex spent her Valentine’s
Day curled up on her bed, discussing the theological justification for suicide
bombings with an ISIS supporter. She does not know his real name or even what
he looks like – his profile picture was of a roaring lion. His handle was
@SurgeonOfDeath.
...to be continued in the next and final post...
#VictoryNA
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